The Effects of the Design and Development of a Chemistry Curriculum Reform on Teachers’ Professional Growth: A Case Study

Abstract

A curriculum innovation requires new learning material for students and a preparation program for teachers, in which teacher learning is a key ingredient. In this paper we describe how three experienced teachers, involved in the development and subsequent classroom enactment of student learning material for context-based chemistry education, professionalized. For data collection a questionnaire, three interviews and discussion transcripts were used. Our results show that: (a) teachers, cooperating in a network under supervision of an expert, can develop innovative learning material; (b) the development of learning material can be seen as a powerful program to prepare teachers for an innovation; and (c) teachers’ knowledge increased in all five pedagogical content knowledge domains during the development and class enactment phases.